The blue bomber has certainly seen better days. The franchise lived up to its name since the beginning, featuring great gameplay, awesome music and providing hours of entertainment, even through its various spin-off series. However, given the recent treatment Megaman has received, it seems that Capcom might be losing interest in the franchise. However, according to Christian Svensson of said company, the blue bomber is as important as ever. Here is his response to the question “Is Mega Man dead?” during a video Q&A:
“Oh, absolutely not. The frustrating thing for me is I have nothing I can hold up and say, ‘Oh, here’s this other Mega Man thing’. Absolutely, we have other things… Mega Man is a very important brand to Capcom. We get questions [like] ‘Are you guys trying to kill the brand?’
“No, absolutely not. It will continue to be a very important brand for us. I wish I had something I could hold and display for you that that’s the case, but I don’t right now. But super, super important to us; I do want to express that.”
He also addresses the cancellation of Megaman Legends 3, the third instalment of the Megaman Legend series which was in development for the Nintendo 3DS, which did cause an uproar with the game’s fan base:
“The decision was not made lightly. Certainly, we knew there would be a lot of upset people and in spite of that, we still had to make that decision. That doesn’t mean we don’t care about you at all. I unfortunately can’t get into the details of it, but it was not a decision that was made lightly and I can tell you that no one is happy about that decision, but it was a decision that had to be made.”
Development for MML3 was quite rocky from the start, considering that this was a game made for the fans but wasn’t officially green lighted from the men in suits. It only got worse after Keiji Inafune left the company, despite the development team reassuring that the game would be made. The fan base was involved quite a bit, including choosing the design of the blue bomber. A paid downloadable demo, named the Prototype Version, was delayed and eventually cancelled with the full game. The demo was to be used to see whether development should continue.
What is also interesting is that there was no question about the exclusion of Megaman from Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3. I would have believed that someone would have wanted an explanation, but unfortunately it wasn’t the case.
